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OUR trip to Srikalahasti

Hai, Last week my family all of us went to Sri Kalahasti.Oh I did a lot of internet surfing about it.My mom also asked her friends all details about it.We left Friday evening.I was just 20 minutes freshedn up after I came from office.In that time I dressed up and my grandmother started feeding me some rasam rice with pakoda simultaneously.I then left with my grandma leaving the responsibility of locking the home to my brother and mother.We went to a dosa camp hotel on the way to shivajinagar to pack up some idlis.But finally we packed some idlis and 2 dosas.We walked to shivajinagar.We hardly waited for 3 minutes my brother and mother reached.We went and took a bus to majestic.No waiting the bus was just there.We got down majestic.We went to other side of majestic and asked some security personnel about the platform where srikalahasti bus would halt.There we finally spotted the bus.Good we went early because that's the only bus that goes directly to srikalahasti from Bangalore and many had booked the tickets already.The bus started around 9 pm.It reached Srikalahasti at 4 30 am.Drive was ok.I actually slept well.

There we halted at a hotel.We had our bath and dressed up.We then went to the temple at 5 30 am.Oh be careful of people who try to loot you.There is a big group at the entrance asked us to light some lamp near rahu ketu and the ganesha there.Oh believe it or not the lamp costs Re.50 each.Ah then from there we went to the main entrance where we bought the ticket for rahu ketu pooja Re.250 one.There are coupons for Re.1000 and Re.600 but the only difference is you do the poja near rahu ketu inside the temple.For the Re .250 coupon they asked us to buy some extra flowers and lamp compulsorily.They almost forced us.Then we went to a big hall where many were already sitting.After waiting for a long time a pujari started giving us instructions in Tamil and Telugu.Oh But its not that clear.. Then they started reciting the mantras. We need to just put the flowers and leaves on the rahu kite idols (it was given as part of the puja coupon).Then after the puja they asked us to light the lamp we bought outside the hall, in front of the main temple. They also asked us to break the 2 coconuts inside the main premises and to put the rahu ketu silver idols in the hundi. We entered the main sannidhi, the temple is really big and beautiful. But I feel the temple is not well maintained. There are beggars inside the temple! The pujaris expect lump sum money everywhere. So either be ready to pay all else you can’t really enjoy the beauty of the temple. We had brunch in a hotel in the same road as the hotel, went to our room rested for sometime and left.Ah we get buses to tirupathi every 5 minutes on the same road. We reached tirupathi at 12:45 pm which is around 1 hr journey. From there we got into a bus to Bangalore.Oh the drive wasn’t good though, the driver was too slow and very bad in driving. We reached ulsoor around 6 30 pm and went home from there. Finally it was a good trip but I don’t understand as to why the temple was not that well maintained and the pujaris asking tips everywhere tarnishes the beauty of the temple.